A sudden surge in oil prices in late London trade Wednesday led to a very brief suspension of trading on the global benchmark futures contract.

The Intercontinental Exchange activated a circuit-breaker at 11:56 EST for the Brent crude oil contract that paused certain trades for five seconds, a spokeswoman for ICE said.

The price limits, introduced in April 2012, stop some transactions when the market moves above a certain limit within a short time span. The limit for ICE Brent futures is $1 above or below an anchor price, which is recalculated every three seconds, with a hold period of five seconds for trades that breach the limits.

Christopher Bellew, a broker at Jefferies Bache in London, said he saw a flash warning on his ICE screen that was too quick to read but that went on for about five seconds. He called ICE, and an operator told him a circuit-breaker had been used at the price of $63.30 per barrel.

Brent crude surged more than 5% to above $63 per barrel at the time when the circuit breaker was activated.

“The ICE put an automatic break at some point above $63—something I have never seen before,” said Bellew.

As the oil market continues to lurch, trading volumes have hit record levels. ICE said a total of 151,354 Brent crude options were traded Tuesday, nearly 19% higher than the previous record of 127,237 lots set on Sept. 26, 2012.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com]